Elsewhere(22)

"Hit by a car. And you?" Liz asks politely.

"Alzheimer's disease, but I guess it was the pneumonia that really did me in," Esther answers.

"What was that like?"

"Can't say I remember," Esther says with a laugh, "and that's probably just as well."

Liz selects Binoculars #15, which faces the land. After all the time on the Nile, Liz has grown tired of water. She sits on the hard metal stool and places an eternim in the slot.

Liz watches her family first. Her parents are sitting across from each other on opposite sides of the dining room table. Her mother looks like she's been awake for days. She smokes a cigarette, even though she'd quit when she became pregnant with Liz. Her father appears to be doing the New York Times crossword puzzle, but he isn't really. He just keeps tracing over the same answer (chauvinism) with his pencil until he's pierced the newspaper all the way through and is writing on the tablecloth. In the living room, Alvy watches cartoons, even though it's a school night and her parents don't allow Liz and her brother to watch television on school nights, no exceptions. The phone rings. Liz's mother jumps to answer it. At that moment, the binoculars'

lenses click closed.

By the time Liz puts a second eternim in the slot, her mother is off the phone. Alvy enters the dining room, wearing a ceramic flowerpot on his head. "I'm a pothead!" he announces proudly.

"Take that off!" her mother screams at Alvy. "Arthur, make your son behave!"

"Alvy, take the pot off your head," Liz's father says in a measured voice.

"But I'm a pothead!" Alvy persists, even though his joke is not at all playing.

"Alvy, I'm warning you." Liz's father is serious now.

"Oh, all right." Alvy removes the pot and leaves the room.

Thirty seconds later, Alvy is back. This time he carries an old wicker Easter basket in his mouth.

"Urmph uf raket ash," says Alvy.

"Now what?" Liz's mother asks.

"Urmph uf rasket ace," Alvy repeats with improved enunciation.

"Alvy, take the basket out of your mouth," Liz's father says. "No one can understand you."

Alvy obeys. "I'm a basket case, get it?"

Alvy is met with blank stares.

"I'm carrying a basket in my mouth, so I'm a basket case "

Liz's father takes the basket with one hand and tousles Alvy's hair with the other. "We all miss Lizzie, but that's really no way to honor your sister."

"Why?" Alvy asks.

"Well, prop comedy has traditionally been viewed as the lowest form of humor, son," Liz's father says in his teaching voice.

"But I'm a basket case," Alvy says plaintively. "Like Mom," he adds.

The lenses click shut before Liz gets to see her mother's reaction. With her next coin, Liz decides to watch someone else. She settles on Zooey.

Zooey is sitting on her bed, talking on the phone. Her eyes are red from crying. "I just can't believe she's gone," Zooey says.

Now this is more like it, Liz thinks. At least someone knows how to mourn properly. Liz can't hear the other side of the conversation but feels sufficiently gratified by Zooey's grief to continue listening.

"I broke up with John. I mean, if he hadn't asked me to the prom, I wouldn't have told Liz to meet me at the mall, and she wouldn't be . . ." Her voice trails off.

"No!" Zooey says adamantly. "I do not want to go!" And then, a moment later in a softer voice, "Besides, I don't even have a dress ..." Zooey twirls the phone cord around her ankle with her foot. "Well, there was this black strapless one ..." The lenses click shut.

Her last two eternims later, Liz is still not sure whether Zooey will or will not go to prom. During that time, Zooey does cry twice. Her tears make Liz happy. (Liz is only a little ashamed that her best friend's tears make her happy.)

At first, Liz feels bad about listening in on her loved ones, but the feeling doesn't last long. She rationalizes that she is really doing this for them. Liz imagines herself as a beautiful, benevolent, generous angel looking down on everyone from . . . from wherever she is.

Leaving the lighthouse that night, Liz realizes that it will take many more eternims to follow the goings on of all her friends and family. (She spent three whole eternims on that small portion of Zooey's phone conversation alone.) If she isn't going to get totally behind, she calculates that she will probably need at least twentyfour eternims a day, or two hours, which amounts to five minutes for every one hour of real life.

"I'm going to need some eternims," Liz announces to Betty during the short drive back to Betty's house, "and I was hoping you would lend them to me."

"Of course. What do you need them for?" Betty replies.

"Well," says Liz, "I want to spend some time at the ODs."

"Liz, do you really think that's a good idea?" Betty looks at Liz with concern, which Liz finds annoying. "Maybe it would be a better use of your time to think about an avocation?"

Liz has prepared herself for Betty's response and is ready with a convincing counterargument.

"The thing is, Betty, since I died so abruptly, I think it would help if I could, like, make peace with the people on Earth. I promise, it won't be forever." Liz feels corny saying "make peace," but she knows adults respond to that sort of thing.